Awareness Test

This is a good awareness test... keep alert!

How much does your cup of coffee cost?

I recently "met" a local sustainable coffee writer and she has an excellent article on the cost of a cup of coffee. I have always approached coffee from basically two perspectives: where is it from and how fresh it is. In actuality, both are essentially the same basic question - how's it taste? This guideline has rarely steered me wrong (particularly since I can get coffee at the peak of freshness... oh and hey, so can you!) I've been fortunate enough that I don't concern myself with price as much as I do with the taste of it. But I recognize that there are many who do not (or can not) approach coffee with such a disregard for cost, and that's where my "professional side" kicks in (who knew I even had a professional side?!?).

As a marketing expert in my other life, I recognize that the price of coffee, while affected by variable and fixed costs obviously, is also driven by your perceptions of the product. What I mean by that is there is a point at which coffee becomes too cheap. If I offered you a pound of coffee for $4, yeah, some would jump on it, but many would look at me like I had a third head wondering, what the h kind of dirt coffee am I trying to push for four bucks a pound?! (interesting side note, I would lose money at $4/lb, so don't even bother to ask) But there is also a point at which coffee becomes too expensive. Even I wince when I shell out what amounts to about $65-70 for a pound of coffee. At that price, it BETTER be damn good and damn fresh coffee... (don't worry it almost alway is).

So, the optimal price for my coffee is somewhere between $4 and $70. There are a lot of statistical tools for figuring out that sweet spot, but I won't bore you with that...

The real question posed is: Why, then, is the cheap, unsustainable coffee still so much in demand? Wouldn't the price alone make people question the quality of the coffee? Well, yes and no. I doubt many folks are buying Folgers or Eight O'Clock coffee because they think it has outstanding freshness or unsurpassed flavor. But the Folgers and Eight O'Clock brands do have value to some people, and the convenience factor is huge (note that by convenience I'm not referring coffee shops... still just talking about the pound of roasted coffee). They are located everywhere you look and that, people will pay for. Plus the power of brands should not be underestimated - people are loyal to brands for a reason and those perceptions (right or wrong) will drive a lot of demand. I could spend hours writing about branding at this point, but don't worry I won't.

As I've always said, a fresh pound of RR coffee will ruin your tastebuds for your regular brand no matter what the price... Again, its a quality that people pay for.

Big Dave!

Photo credit to shine_dorydevlin Thank you!

Birds and Coffee

I have been hearing more and more recently about the relationship between birds and coffee (no I'm not talking about a bird variety of civet coffee), and so I thought I would expand on what this relationship is, and why it's important.

Shade grown coffee is grown in the shade of canopy trees. The trees provide protection for the coffee from the (often) heavy rains, while providing soil moisture retention (very important in coffee growth) , helps maintain the correct nitrogen level in the soil, reduces erosion, and even reduces the need for weeding around the plants. This reduces the needs for fertilizers and it's why many of your organic coffees are also often shade grown - it's just easier and often cheaper! Chemicals required for growing coffee in full sun

The shade trees on coffee farms have proven to be an excellent habitat for migratory birds. In fact, there have been as many as 150 different species of migratory birds have found in one coffee farm. So, with so many pluses why would anyone choose to grow coffee in full sun?

Well, there are essentially three main reasons:

• Production - coffee production in sun filled fields is substantially higher than in forests. Recovery of the coffee can also be mechanized, which is not possible in shade farms.
• Politics - of course politics is going to be in here somewhere - in the late 1980's/early 1990's coffee prices plunged as a result of the collapse of an agreement by coffee producing countries. This drove some countries (like Columbia) to modernize their coffee production and drove smaller farms out of business.
• Cash Crops - this relates again to the price that coffee draws. As crop prices for other crops like wheat and corn that require full sun climbs, and as these become more profitable, forest is converted to fields in order to capitalize on this profit - this is particularly a danger as bio-fuel demand grows.
  

Shaded coffee plantations are often the last refuge for migratory birds, but birds are only one indicator of the role that coffee plays in protecting biological diversity. Shaded coffee plantations offer refuges for insect, tree, and other animal species as well. I'll be doing more due diligence to make sure that Rouge Roastery has shade grown coffees, and I'll post shortly which of our current offerings are shade grown.

Big Dave!